R&D Session Four: Tron (1982)

Digitize user and let them play games, to the death!

Tron (1982) is a story very near and dear to my heart, growing up this has had massive influences on me and is probably why I am so interested in virtual reality in the first place. As I said on a previous post, looking at this film with the cinematic expertise that I have allows me to appreciate this film in a variety of new ways.

The special effects being the major selling point of this movie. The gorgeous virtual looking sets, the cyber suit/armour that they wear, the heavily stylistic world to contrast the real world and the looming threat of the M.C.P (Master Control Programme). For it's time this was a super ambitious project, however it absolutely nails what it is going for. Sure there are some imperfections here and there due to special effects not going as smooth as envisioned, that being said it is extremely hard to notice unless you are looking out for it.

The concept of Tron is simple, a young programmer named Kevin Flynn was backstabbed in the most cooperate way by Edward Dillinger. He takes credit for Flynn's five games that he developed and it launched Dillinger straight to the top of the company. Alan Bradley, an employee in the same firm is under suspicion currently due to his development of the programme Tron. Tron is a security programme meant to monitor communications from outside the system known as CLU, while also policing everything inside the system.

Kevin Flynn meets Alan through a common associate named Lora, and the three together plot to take down Dillinger by finding evidence hidden as a memory file within CLU that proves that Kevin Flynn is the creator of the system and the games featured on it. Once inside a testing area that Flynn is shown my Lora, Flynn logs onto a terminal and tries to access a level 6 security clearance. It is during this the M.C.P starts telling him to stop and warns him to stop.

Flynn opts in to ignore the M.C.P, which leads him becoming digitized and beamed into the CLU system, where is he forced to face the perils of the digital world. He is brought and locked in a cell with human looking programmes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP0kHTkYCPU&t=1s

How Kevin gets brought into CLU is strange, he gets zapped with a beam from some device and then this grid appears around his body. In the clip I have included above you can watch this sequence, but to me this seems like an interesting way to physically send someone to cyberspace. As in the Matrix, they are "jacked" in by their implants, Sword Art Online is similar to the Matrix only they were a headset and in Tron they take the entire user existence, porting you into the CLU.

Wrapping Up

Tron has inspired a lot of other films, such as Akira's extremely famous motorbike slide and a slew of other movies that came after it. There are similarities with the Matrix where even though Flynn is trying to prove the system is his to take down Dillinger. Tron is trying to liberate the system so that it can be free again for users and programmes to enjoy without the tyrannical M.C.P. This is kind of like Neo, where Neo is trying to free the humans from control of machines.

This movie really is a gem, I can see why it holds the status that it does. In a way this was such a risk to make due to how experimental a lot of the visual effects would be, but I admire the lasting impact that it has had in film and filmmaking.

Thanks for reading!